Lebanon bans pagers from planes
Lebanon has banned pagers and walkie-talkies from flights to and from Beirut, the Lebanese National News Agency (NNA) has reported.
The restrictions were enacted after at least 37 people were killed and around 3,000 were injured when hand-held devices used by Hezbollah members exploded across Lebanon throughout Tuesday and Wednesday. The militants have blamed Israel for the incident.
“Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport on Wednesday issued a new directive prohibiting passengers from carrying pagers and walkie-talkies on board any aircraft,” the NNA reported on Thursday, citing a statement from Faid El Hassan, the head of the Lebanese civil aviation authority. The ban applies to all types of luggage and cargo, he added.
Hezbollah has previously opted to use pagers as a low-tech and supposedly secure method of communication out of fear that Israel would hack into their smartphones and use them for surveillance.
While West Jerusalem has not confirmed or denied involvement, multiple media outlets reported that Israeli spy agency Mossad was responsible for rigging the devices with explosives.
The New York Times cited sources as saying that Mossad set up a fake firm in Hungary in order to produce the compromised pagers under a licensing agreement with a Taiwanese company.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has said that the blasts were tantamount to a “declaration of war” and vowed to retaliate. Israeli officials, meanwhile, reiterated that they were determined to stop Hezbollah from firing rockets and mortar shells into northern Israel.
The UN has condemned the pager and walkie-talkie explosions as “unacceptable,” with the organization’s human rights chief, Volker Turk, calling for an independent probe into the incident.
